LAFAYETTE, Ind.— With new restaurants arriving nearly every month and manufacturers finding a home in the Greater Lafayette area, there is no shortage of available jobs.

But with new jobs arising every day, employers are struggling to fill their vacancies before new job postings hit the classifieds.

Kelly Blanchard, a continuous term lecturer in Purdue University's Krannert School of Management, said wage growth in Indiana has outpaced inflation leading to increased spending power for consumers.

"Many open jobs are for relatively skilled laborers, whether that’s a trucking license or some kind of certification," Blanchard said. "The more those skills are in demand and they don’t have the people to fill those jobs, then that is eventually going to start raising wages for those positions, which is definitely a good thing. But on the other hand it actually becomes harder in those minimum wage jobs to find people to work them."

Blanchard said even looking around at the advertisements for local fast food restaurants, most open positions are above minimum wage, looking to compete for able bodies seeking work.

Lafayette hiring is on the rise, but who benefits?

Over 2018, local government in Greater Lafayette saw one of the highest rates of hiring for new positions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while manufacturing jobs continued to steadily rise as well in the area.

But with the vast amount of open jobs in the area, what happens when those jobs go unfilled? Well, a few different things, Blanchard said, one of which could be inflation, but not immediately.

"The everyday consumer wouldn’t see the effects of increased wages for a while, however," she said. "Eventually you could, but if it’s the case that when you hire these people it allows businesses to do well, then they do not necessarily start raising prices right away."

Seeing the 'ripple effects'

In the short term, the vacancies among employers hiring based on increasing product demand would benefit the current employees, who could see more hours and overtime pay come their way.

"Demand for the output has been going up so they are trying to meet that demand, but companies want to hire people they can keep for a period of time, because they don’t want to invest training and education in the specific skills that go with their company if someone is just going to leave," Blanchard said. "If you can’t find those kind of people though, the current employees end up working overtime or are allowed to work more hours, which in the short run employees might be excited about the prospect of making more money, but I imagine in the long run that can get pretty exhausting."

The national unemployment rate rose in Friday's report, however, from a 50-year low of 3.7 percent to 3.9 percent as an additional 419,000 Americans began working or looking for jobs, many of them drawn in to the labor force by a strong job market.

The increase in wages works as an incentive to bring laborers into the job market who may not have been interested in the work before, Blanchard said. However, if those potential workers aren't biting, that could cause a potential issue.

"Normally you would expect when wages rise for people to say okay, I’ll start looking for work even if I wasn’t looking for work before, but now that wages are higher, it’s worth it for me to put the kids in day care or it's worth it for me to cut back on my volunteer time and start working more," she said. "If you aren’t getting that response from people and they would prefer to do something else with their time, then wages keep rising and it gets more costly to hire those people, and that’s where you start to see the ripple effects of higher output prices."

'I feel like I can't find any quality help'

Mason Tam, general manager of Nami's Bar and Grill at 102 N. Third Street in Lafayette, said finding quality help after their restaurant recently opened in December has proven difficult.

"I feel like I can't find any quality help, and if you want someone who does give quality work, you're going to pay for it, and this is something I have talked about with a lot of other restaurants in the area," Tam said. "It is almost to the point now where the people who are of high quality that I do have, I want to give them a raise so I don't lose them to anyone else."

Tam said a bartender with Nami's would start at five dollars an hour plus tips, while hosts and dishwashers would start at $10 an hour.

Buy Photo

Now Hiring sign posted at Pay Less Super Market Wednesday, November 14, 2018, at 1032 Sagamore Parkway West in West Lafayette. (Photo: John Terhune/Journal & Courier)

"If a bartender came in though and knew how to make drinks and order alcohol, I would give them $10 an hour just because I want to find someone who is good at what they do," he said. "Finding a good bartender is becoming a lost art. I have never been a bartender, but I might have to learn if it comes down to it."

Other factors in the local job market, too, are trade deals, Blanchard said.

"The influence of the U.S. Central Bank on interest rates and what impact interest rates have on a bunch of different variables is a factor as well," she said. "But the same could be said about gasoline prices, because when gas prices are really low it makes it a lot easier for some of these companies to grow."

So, what happens if the lag in filling of job vacancies doesn't cease? Blanchard said that isn't exactly known.

"There could be more changes in tax laws, there could be more changes in trade deals, or costs of other inputs the company faces could change," she said. "Any of those things are going to change how long it takes for any one impact to kind of go through an entire cycle."

Contact reporter Jillian Ellison at 765-420-5228 or at jeellison@gannett.com.